Ala Singh was the Sikh chief of Patiala, the territory where Abdali had ended up. A year earlier, at Panipat, Ala Singh, who belonged to the Phulkian misl, had procured food and fodder for the Maratha army. Ordered now to submit to Abdali, the Sikh chief procrastinated, whereupon he was seized and imprisoned. An angry Abdali wanted Ala Singh to ‘rid himself of the most visible symbol of Sikhism by getting himself clean-shaved’, but the Afghan king’s first minister, Wali Khan, successfully intervened and a large tribute was deemed sufficient punishment for Ala Singh’s vacillation.30
